


Hope of a Friend

by Salfur



Category: Wayward Guide for the Untrained Eye (Tin Can Brothers)
Genre: Angst, Character Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:48:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27232987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salfur/pseuds/Salfur
Summary: Sybilus reflects on his interaction with one Paul Schue-Horyn.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 37





	Hope of a Friend

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve only known Sybilus Silver II for a few minutes but if anything were to happen to him I would kill everyone in this room and then myself.

Paul had seemed like such a nice fellow at first, and Sybilus was infinitely flattered that he wanted to interview him of all people. Not many people wanted to hear about what an accountant did for a living and it soon became clear that neither did Paul. No, that was all too plain to see the moment he began to spew that werewolf nonsense at him.

Who did Paul think Sybilus was? Did he _honestly_ believe that he would be so stupid as to fall for such a prank? For such a ruse? Though, admittedly, Sybilus supposed he did fall or something. That false beacon of hope in that man’s soft smile. The hope of a friend. 

He could feel a spark of something light in his chest. Perhaps… Perhaps Paul genuinely _did_ want to be friends. Or maybe it was all just a ruse as well. Just a way to get his guard down so he could punch him in the face right after (metaphorically, of course). Sybilus didn’t know. He wasn’t sure he even wanted to know anymore.

Sybilus had never been good with people. Numbers? Math? That was easy. He had always understood numbers. There was always a concrete solution in math. One plus one is two, and something always equals x. People, however, were something that he had yet to figure out the formula for. And, if he was being honest with himself, he didn’t have high hopes of figuring that out any time soon. When he was younger, he believed he could figure it out. Figure out that numerical value that equated to x that would make people make sense.

What a young fool he’d been. Sybilus knew now that people weren’t just some formula he could solve. There would never be a concrete answer that could help him understand others, that could help him connect with those around him. He had long since come to terms with that fact. It didn’t bother him. At least, that’s what he told himself. He told himself that he was happy with his life. Happy crunching numbers for others. Happy to go home at the end of the day alone. Happy to be used and discarded once his usefulness had come to an end.

He was happy… wasn’t he?

No, he wasn’t. He knew that he wasn’t. He knew that the monotonous days crunching numbers for Miner Mole were just a distraction from his empty life. He knew he just told himself he was satisfied with his life to keep himself out of a depressive hole. One that he would not know how to escape from if he were to fall down it. Maybe if he had someone who truly cared for him he could make it through without all these lies, but that just wasn’t the life Sybilus knew.

He wasn’t sure how long he'd felt this way but he knew it had to have been a good while. And it wasn’t as if he didn’t know he felt like this either. He would just rather not acknowledge it if he could help it. “Out of sight out of mind,” as they say. And perhaps it wasn’t the _healthiest_ way of life. But it was his.

Still, he had hoped that things would be different with Paul. That maybe, just maybe, he could finally have a friend. But, deep down, Sybilus knew it was too good to be true. And he was right. He had gotten his hopes up only for them to be crushed right before his very eyes yet again. He should have known better. Should have known from the beginning, from the moment that Paul and his sister walked into Silas Torsen’s waiting room that he would be just another tool in their investigation. Someone who they could simply discard once they depleted his usefulness. He was naive to think Paul would want to truly become his friend. Because who would ever actually want to be friends with him?


End file.
